Another Courageous Priest – In Montana

Normally I would be loathe to link to anything from New Ways Ministry [I, AQ moderator Tom, am loathe and thus won’t link], but they seem to have the only account of this incident. Of course, being advocates for perversion, they will be putting onto it their own warped perspective. I needn’t rehash the entire account here but will attempt to shine the light of the Teaching of Jesus Christ onto the matter.

Two years ago, Father Spiering of St. Leo’s Catholic Church in Lewistown MT had denied Holy Communion to two gay men who pretended to be “married”. He also expelled them from parish apostolates. A number of parishioners got into a huff; several members of the choir, including the director, immediately resigned.

It seems that an elderly member of the parish also had her nose put out of joint. Her own son was engaged in ongoing sodomite mortal sin. She passed away and expressly asked that the choir director – who had stomped off on her own volition – be allowed to lead the singing. A former pastor, who was obviously sympathetic to the gays, defended the woman’s “right” to sing. Father Spiering said “no”, correctly stating that no such “right” existed. Do consider that Father Spiering, as pastor, had complete responsibility for the occurrences in that parish and for the upholding of the Teachings of Jesus Christ. He and the former pastor argued, but Spiering stood his ground, stating that he would ban the former pastor from the parish if necessary. He informed the family that he would be conducting the funeral.

Enter now the wimps of the local chancery. Father Peterson, vicar general for the Diocese of Great Falls – Billings, conducted the service and allowed the ex-choir director to lead the singing. He himself is a personal friend of the deceased woman’s family, presumably including the gay “couple”. In other words, he undermined Father Spiering’s authority in that situation. He acknowledged Father Spiering’s canonical rights, but said the actions weren’t “pastoral”. Don’t you just love that word “pastoral” and how it’s used to justify all manners of disobedience to Our Lord?

The New Ways screed closes by stating that “Father Spierling’s minsterial competencies and role in active ministry should be questioned”. The fact is that New Ways Ministry is steeped in dissent from the Teachings of the Church. As far as “ministerial competencies” are concerned, New Ways simply doesn’t know apple butter from cow pie. That won’t stop them from calling the diocese and screeching at them to remove Father Spierling – much like they did to Father Marcel Guarnizo of my own parish four years ago.

The Lewistown parish is only about 80 miles from me and, of course, we heard about the bruhaha when it happened. Our bishop did go to the parish to remind parishioners where the church stood on such matters. I, however, had not heard about the funeral situation and that Fr. Jay Peterson had taken that over. Very disappointing to hear.
This young priest and several others in our pretty modernist diocese have been pushing the envelope as far as Latin masses go. God Bless them. At a large conference last summer where we were blessed with 6 nights in a row of the glorious Latin Mass, we had the pleasure to hear this young man speak. There is hope when we hear them teach the true faith. Of course, NONE of the old guard was at any of the events of the conference but the bishop did participate and speak. He had NO clue about the the TLM rubrics (or so it appeared) but he did support the event. The same group is getting together in August this year again for a week long Marian conference. Young priests from several different states will attend as they did last year.
Many years ago when SP came out, I wrote a letter to Fr. Jay requesting a Latin Mass somewhere in our diocese. He just poopooed my request with a rather lengthy letter. I think I have it saved. ;-)
These young priests here and around the world need our prayers to continue to courageously stand up for the true faith.